The Empire of the West
by LastStandZiggy
Summary: Nothing will ever be the same again... From across the great ocean in the west comes the ancient Acheronian empire, a civilization built with technology and the use of the ley lines, a form of magic never before seen by the men or elves of Halkeginia... Temporary Hiatus until I flesh out the storyline.
1. Arrival

_Disclaimer! (Surprisingly needed on a site called ) I do not claim any semblance of ownership of the series __**Zero No Tsukaima/Familiar of Zero,**__ which is owned by __**Noboru Yamaguchi**__. I do claim ownership of any OC's and the most obviously new nation however…_

_Anyhow, please enjoy my work, and review, every bit of criticism or advice would be helpful beyond measure…_

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><p><strong>Arrival.<strong>

Albion, the white country, so called because of the endless clouds that hide the continent above the rest of the world. For the past decade this beautiful country has seen almost endless strife, from a bloodthirsty civil war that overthrew the former royal house, and then followed shortly by a war with the smaller mainland nation of Tristain and her ally of Germania.

Albion was invaded from the southern tip by a combined force of the Tristianian and Germainian armies, in time it was repelled and expelled from the continent by the army of the newly created Holy Republic of Albion, though with an extreme amount of casualties. The war was short lived, only lasting two months, and neither side truly gained anything.

A complete waste of life, resources and other things that can never be returned.

Several weeks after the war, the nobles of Albion returned to what was left of their lands, and nothing stayed the same from the ways before. Political backstabbing was just as prominent as before, if not more so, and even some nobles took chances to outright kill or declare war on each other. The Holy Republic of Albion became nothing more than a floating continent covered from shore to shore with warlords seeking out to control more land than they had before the war.

One noble, Edmund Blackadder, was still a young man and naïve to the political ideals of the new Albion. The lands left to him by his father were located in the farthest north west of the Albionian continent…

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><p>Edmund Blackadder sat atop his draconic familiar as it flew above a large patch of forest and headed towards a long, low stretch of mountains. His lands were (to him) nothing special, covered in large amount of forests with simple forester folk who's only real income came from selling lumber to his family, and then the mountains, short and squat and completely underserving of the title of mountains, they were more like hills or highlands than anything. This all just abruptly ended as the 'coast' dropped off of the floating continent.<p>

Edmund sighed, his lands were embarrassing to possess. Nothing of any true value, his family couldn't get richer and the '_mountains'_ were all mined out of anything valuable decades earlier. Maybe his family had higher standing years ago but not anymore. He sighed again, louder than earlier, before tugging on the reins of his familiar to land near a clearing in the hills.

The large wind dragon landed lazily on top of a hill, before looking back at her master, Edmund dismounted removed his helmet and then patted the dragon on the neck, "Just a short break, Mary, just need to stretch my legs," He then pulled a water sack from a pouch on his saddle, "Then we can go back to looking for this foreigner camp."

Edmund walked around the hilltop, taking an occasional drink from the water sack, and thinking of all the places a camp would be. He chuckled at himself, he might have been the owner of his family's ancestral lands but his mother, Alyssa Blackadder, was the person who made sure that it ran properly. Edmund laughed at himself as he remembered the conversation two days ago that brought him to this remote little hill.

_He stood in his family's library, looking at the books that line the walls and then back at his mother's wavy hair, black and starting to go grey. The same hair he had himself, an idle thought came to mind that if he grew his hair out maybe he would look more like his mother than his father. He was about to chuckle before his mother stared at him with cold green eyes, cutting the mirth from his throat before it could escape._

"_I want you to go to the north" She spoke before looking back at the letter in her hand, "Nobleman Reese keeps sending letters saying that his peasants there keep seeing groups of people that speak gibberish." His mother looked back at him, "Apparently, they flew in from the west."_

_He scoffed and closed his eyes, "I don't think chasing fairy tales is worth my time mother, everyone knows that there's nothing to the west, just the ocean which falls off the ledge of the world."_

_When he opened his eyes again, Edmund was struck frozen. His mother was looking at him with a smile, her wand in her free hand and her familiar, which until now was coiled around a drinking glass, rose as if ready to strike, its small icy frame let off a small mist as its bared fangs dripped with freezing liquids. Edmund's eyes widened and he clenched his jaw as his mother spoke softly, "Edmund, my sweet little Edmund… You wouldn't want to anger your mother, now would you?"_

_She rose from her chair, walked over and stood a half head taller than he, tapped the wand on his cheek, "After all, it would be _**wrong**_ of you to anger your mother, Edmund."_

"_No mother, I would never anger you mother." He hastily replied before she tapped his cheek twice with the wand._

"_That's my _little_ Edmund" She turned and went back to her chair. He, silently, let out a breath he didn't know he held._

"_Besides, I always thought you liked stories like that. Elves, knights on dragon back, the fay folk, I thought you would've jumped on the chance to go see people that might've come from the edge of the world."_

Edmund laughed again as he noticed for the hundredth time that he had no backbone whenever it came to talking with his mother, a frightening woman, a square class mage that uses ice. He shuddered and took another drink from the water sack and made his way back towards his familiar who was lying down and starting to doze off, "Mary, wake up, time to keep looking."

He put the water sack back into the saddle pouch as the dragon rose, he mounted her and was about to put on his helmet when he just barely heard the sound of wing beats in the air. Using a small dot level wind spell, he increased his hearing for a moment in an attempt to locate it; he looked towards the sky and saw nothing. He motioned for his mount to turn around, no sooner had he done so, _**it**_ landed in front of him.

A dragon, ten meters in length from the tip to tip, nearly twice the size of his own familiar had landed in front of him. But it was a different breed, one that he has never seen before; its front limbs were the wings themselves and from the size of them they were easily twice the creatures **own** size, the creatures head was thin at the tip of its mouth but got wider the closer it got towards the neck.

But there were two more frightening aspects of this beast, this monster, were the fact that covering its head is was what could only be called armor and its chest and abdomen was painted a dark purple. An armored rider, with a helmet that had a V-shaped slit over the eyes, several long colored feathers and a long staff in his hand sat at the base of the creature's neck.

The creature arched its neck and dozens of half meter long, brightly colored feathers flared out from behind the dragons head as the creature hissed an unearthly sound. The rider atop the dragon raised his staff and brought it down quickly on the dragon's neck before pointing it at Edmund. He returned the motion in kind, drawing his sword wand and pointed it towards the unknown rider.

"Lower your staff!" Edmund shouted, "You are in the lands of the Blackadder family, you are to cease your actions and leave!"

The man on the dragon spoke, it was odd. It was just, gibberish. Edmund's mind raced, this person couldn't be one of those people that the peasants spoke of, could he? Also, not one letter from the nobleman Reese said anything about a giant dragon. Either this man was insulting Edmund, or this is the first time that anyone saw this beast and lived.

Edmund's arm tensed up as he started to think about what to do next, the dragon across from him and Mary was huge, but it couldn't be that fast. And if he could kill it or slow it down, that means he could get away.

The man on the monster of a dragon yelled something at him this time and Edmund replied in a simple way.

"Wind lance!"

A long shot of spiraling wind leapt out from the tip of Edmund's sword wand and lashed across the beasts left eye, sending it into a berserk fury as it whipped its head around in an animalistic attempt to stop the pain, casting the rider to the ground. Edmund then yanked on the reins of his own mount and shot off into the air.

Edmund and his familiar rose at blinding speeds, during this time he finally put his helmet back on allowing him to see through the glass of the cross shaped slit in the front. Looking back towards where the beast was he yelled out in horror as the creature rose from the ground into the air to follow him, he also noted the rider of the beast was lifted into the air as well by a rope that attached the two.

Edmund urged Mary to fly higher into the air, and unsurprisingly the great beast followed them albeit slowly. He started to find it hard to breath, and realized that he was the highest he himself could go, and the beast was still rising to catch them.

He then pulled the reins to stop his familiar and they both hovered and waited as the monster kept coming, when the beast had gotten close enough for Edmund's liking, he yanked on the reins and made Mary dive. While passing the dragon he fired another wind lance and scored a hit across the beast's belly, causing its deep red blood to mix with the purple painted on its body.

Diving as fast as they could Edmund spared a look back at the monster now above them, and gripped the saddle tighter than he has ever before in an attempt to gain speed. His plan to out dive the monster backfired as the bigger beast snapped eagerly at his familiar's tail.

A sudden retching feeling hit Edmund as he maneuvered Mary to turn at sharp angles to avoid getting bitten, the beast behind had to move in wider angles because of its size. Getting closer to the land of Albion, they eventually leveled out near the ground and shot through the valleys of the undeserving-to-be-called-mountains.

Taking a look over his right shoulder as they came out of the mountains near the '_coast'_, Edmund saw a sight he never thought he would have to see again after the war. Ships, large cigar shaped ships, at least six of which were on the ground with another three even longer ships still in the air, looking towards the mountain he noticed the castle that was abandoned after the mines dried up was now in the process of being rebuilt by whoever these foreigners were.

He had to get back to the estate and tell his mother that he indeed found people, and they came in the hundreds.

Flying low enough that he could see these people, but still high enough in the air that they wouldn't be able to get a lucky shot using muskets or crossbows to knock him and his mount out of the air, Edmund noted what these foreigners looked like. Almost all that he could see had white hair and tanned almost red skin; others wore armor that looked like sheets of metal plates layered on each other and carried large purple fronted tower shields with a strange symbol that he couldn't identify at the speed he and his familiar were flying.

Looking back the way they had come, Edmund noticed the monster of a dragon land in a nearby open field and the rider dismount (after finally remounting he noticed, although the thought of a connecting rope was a little odd for a mages familiar though) and start motioning towards his mount and towards the general direction of Edmund.

Flying closer to the abandoned castle, Edmund motioned for Mary to land onto the highest tower to get a better look than just a simple flyby. Landing might have been the wrong term, since the tower was in a dilapidated state and half the roof caved in, it was more akin to hanging onto what was left of the tower.

Looking into the tower for safeties sake, Edmund noticed a single woman with a tall staff and a long green skirt that extended around her back and then to her front where the two bands from the skirt covered each of her breasts and wrapped around her neck, she had a beautiful gold medallion covered belt that was more for ornamentation than to hold up her skirt, and she was standing blindfolded in the middle of the tower. She might have been blindfolded but anyone would have heard a dragon land on a tower and she stood, relaxed and undaunted, and was looking in the direction of Edmund and his familiar.

The gust of wind he caused when landing sent the woman's white hair (which was inlaid with many golden beads) into disarray and besides for her hidden eyes looked quite beautiful, Edmund paid the woman no more mind as he was more than worried about attacks from soldiers with ranged weapons or, Brimir help him, another one of those monstrous dragons.

Yanking on the reigns intending to fly off, Mary whipped her long necked head around and looked back at the woman, Edmund noticed his familiars eyes grow wide and he turned to look at the woman and noticed that beside for her raised hand had barely moved at all, what caught his attention was the woman's brightly glowing hand.

He barely had enough time to raise his, still drawn, sword wand before a spiraling triple helix like beam of white energy escaped the woman's hand and struck his familiar just behind her left wing, and removed it from the rest of her body. Edmund and His familiar screamed as they fell towards the ground, Edmund in fear and desperation, Mary in her bestial fury and pain at the forced removal of her wing.

Edmund let go of his saddle when they struck an out cropping extending from the old castle, which might have saved his life as he landed a few meters away in a stack of crates as his mount landed on her back and crushed a small cart beneath her.

His helmet now removed and himself just barely conscious he looked towards his familiar as she writhed around in the ground in pain, he yelled out when a group of the scale armored warriors started to throw short thick javelins into her draconic hide. Mary, a wind dragon almost as old as Edmund's twenty-one, with a strong penchant of sleeping away her days and eating small sheep, killed by the hands of strange white haired foreign commoners with commoners weapons.

Rolling onto his back Edmund noticed three armored men come into his field of view; they looked towards each other and spoke in their funny sounding gibberish, he looked once more at his familiar as a group of men, stripped to their waists and wearing what could truly be called a knee length skirts and strange sandal like boots, started to drag her off somewhere. Looking back towards the sky Edmund saw one last thing before the blackness of unconsciousness took him; seven small metal studs on the bottom of a dark brown leather boot…

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><p>His head pounded, almost like it would if he had been drinking heavily the night before, but even in his near conscious state he knew he wasn't drinking the night before. Trying to move his hands, Edmund felt that they were tied behind his back, and after a few moments he gave up when he heard a person move. He kept his eyes closed as the person started to walk towards him, a step away and whomever it was stopped, the sudden cold sensation over his head and upper body proved to Edmund that the person had just dumped water on him.<p>

Opening his eyes fully and sitting up as fast as he could, he realized he was in a small room with three other people. An armored man was stepping away holding a bucket, now empty of its contents, he wore the same armor as the other men from before but it covered a fine red tunic and was now finished with a helmet that covered all of his head except for a T-shaped slit down the center that showed his eyes, nose and mouth.

Edmund looked at the second man, he sat in the middle and wore the same kind of armor, except that it was heavily decorated with swirling lines and it covered a splendid purple tunic that was the same color as the shields and the monsters belly. His helmet, which was covered just as heavily in the swirling marks, looked the same as the other mans except for a plume that extended up on a small brass piece and then transversally extended from the center of the helmet, the color of the stiff hair was white in the center and ends with two black parts separating the white.

The man's helmet sat on his right knee held there by his hand and his left sat on the hilt of a decently long steel rod, the man's face was that of an older man, in his mid-thirties at most. His hair and skin were just as white and tan as the other men Edmund has seen, and just like all the men without helmets, his hair was cropped as close to his head as he could get it. He had a small nose and his face was round, and compared to the rest of his armored body, his head appeared to be smaller than what should be normal.

His eyes looked hard and tempered from battle, their color was a slightly brown, but what really brought Edmunds attention to them was the light skinned scar that extended from just above his right eyebrow down to the bottom of his chin.

Looking at the person on the far left, Edmund felt what little energy he had turn into rage, the woman from the tower was standing in the small room. Her green clothes and gold medallions stood out from the purple and silver of the man in the middle, and the red and silver of the man on the right. The gold medallion band around her waist jingled when his eyes settled on her.

Edmund stood, "Y-you killed Mary! Y-you killed my familiar!" Edmund took a step forward and stopped when the man to his right tugged on the short sword and revealed the shining metal shoulder of the blade.

The man in the center raised his left hand, and the sword went back into the sheath.

"And you attacked one of my men," The sitting man's voice was ruff after what must have been years of yelling and sounded painfully loud inside the small room, "You severely wounded a feathered serpent, and if it wasn't for the skill of the beast's rider it would've rampaged and destroyed more than just soldiers. Fields, forests, herd of beasts as well as the homes of those that cannot fight such monstrosities."

Edmund stared at the man as if he grew another eye or nose, now they could speak the Albionian dialect? The man stared back with his hard eyes, in an effort to hide his fear Edmund straightened his back and spoke with his best 'regal' voice.

"I am Edmund Blackadder," Edmund closed his eyes, remembering all of his little speech, "Son of Harold Blackadder and Alyssa Blackadder. I am the current head of family of the Blackadder estate, and _you_ sir are on Blackadder lands and are required to leave at once."

Edmund opened his eyes and fixed the man with his best nobleman gaze, "I struck at your man because he would not identify himself and chose instead to speak nothing but gibberish to a man of noble descent; he was at fault here, not I."

The man looked at Edmund, his expression didn't change at all and he was quiet for a long moment, "Alright, archon of Blackadder," The man started, "I am the second in line for the archon of house Parlathan, I have served since my initiation of manhood at eighteen, and since then have gathered many honors and have been given the command of the sixty-seventh legion for three years now. I have fought the desert dwellers near the great crevice, culled the pictish tribes in the north, and have found an island that floats in the sky upon a bed of clouds."

The man stood, helmet tucked into the crook of his elbow and towered a full head higher than Edmund, "Boy,"The man leaned in, squinting his eyes and got within a hands width of Edmunds face, "_**I**_, am Antarios of Parlathan, servant of the '_Acheronian Empire'_ and the man that is going to annex this floating continent in the name of the First, _and_ the Empress Larissa Kamaterina."

The man moved back a step but stayed standing in front of Edmund, the young man's mind raced as he thought continuously of what the man said.

"Y-you came to conquer Albion?" The young man couldn't hide his fear anymore, they just admitted to him that they were going to try and conquer the Holy Republic of Albion.

"W-w-with nine ships and only a few hundred men," Edmund let out a small nervous laugh, "how are you going to conquer an entire nation a pittance of a force, _general_?"

Antarios turned away from Edmund and walked towards the cell door, the man on the right grabbed the stool and the door opened; the general looked back over his shoulder at Edmund, "Archon Blackadder, more will come and besides," He motioned his head towards the blindfolded woman, "you are going to tell the Ley Mother."

The general and the red tunic man left after that, but they were both replaced with two brown tunic men with the same undecorated armor, but both took a position in opposite corners of the room to either side of the 'ley mother'. The woman moved in front of Edmund as he took a step back, she stepped forward again and raised her arms, and once again Edmund retreated from the woman straight into the wall of the small cell.

She approached and put her hands on either side of his head and spoke in an impossibly smooth and relaxed tone, "Relax, Edmund, relax, the more you fight the more it will hurt."

She moved closer and a slight smile spread across her lips, if he wanted to, Edmund could kiss the woman in front of him she was so close, he tried to relax but what the woman said next made his face go pale in terror, his strength leave his knees and tears stream unbidden from his eyes.

"_You wouldn't want to anger your mother, now would you?_"

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><p>Antarios Parlathan, general of the sixty-seventh legion walked down the musty old hallway as the young man's pained and terrified screams behind him faded into the ancient stonework of the albionian fortress. He was followed closely by his most trusted and trustworthy advisor in these foreign lands, the red tunic showed that they were also the second in command to the general of the legion, and also the master of the engineering corps of the legion.<p>

They both came up into an open courtyard and looked on as the stripped to the waist legionaries working hard at rebuilding the crumbled walls. The master engineer removed the helmet that would normally safeguard a soldiers head in combat and shouted towards a group of men working on building an improvised ballista cover on the upper wall.

"You men," A high, truly feminine, voice rang upwards towards the legionaries as the master engineer pointed up at them, "make sure that you have at least a meter of length extending from the crenellations outward, and make sure that it's supported by corbels, don't want some poor bastard to fall and take the whole damn cover with him on the way down!"

Antarios pinched the bridge of his nose between his eyes as his sister walked back towards him, helmet in hand and a forced face of calm. Her face was round just like his own and much softer in appearance, and lacked the scar he received from a pictish back-sword four years before. Her white hair was also much longer than his, which is odd for anyone in the Acheronian Legions; long hair had problems of getting caught in the winding gears, pulleys and turn cranks of the war machines the legion normally marched with.

"Master engineer, I believe that will be enough modifying the still unfinished walls of this fortress." Her reply was a curt and silent nod, Antarios sighed and chose instead to speak with his sister, "Arturia, You are not acting like your normal self, what has you troubled?"

"Those children," She didn't even look at him, and he could hear her voice shake ever so slightly, "They were starved half to death and worse off than some beggar in the poorest backwater village out in the sticks."

Antarios sighed again, ever since she saw those children she would constantly think of them. Hell, he couldn't help but think of them when he had any time he wasn't using to set up the camp, rebuild the fortress and send orders to the just arriving commanders of ship and cohort. The children that you could see their bones through their skin… He shook his head violently to get the images out of his head; he was a soldier and no one, no matter who they were, deserved to die as nothing more than skin and bones. With no fuel to feed the fire that sends them into the Summerland.

"Sister," He began, "We will absorb this country into the empire, and _**we**_ will change it."

He grabbed her shoulder with his free hand and gently made her look at him, "In the name of the First and on our family's honor; I swear that we will change this floating island for the better, for Acheron and for our family I swear this on our ancestor's blood."

A slight smile spread across her lips, "You swear too much."

"But I mean this, little sister, the Empire has arrived."


	2. First Blood

_Alright, let me start off with saying; I didn't really like the last line that Antarios said before I cut off the chapter. It just sounded a tad bit to Narmy for me, and it was like four Am when I finished writing that first chapter. I'm also changing the rating from T to M because when I started to go over the story in my head, I realized just how brutal the Acheronians are in combat, as well as how… Provocative, the standard ideals of clothes and customs are as well._

_I chose to write this story because I kind of just got tired of the standard, 'Louise summons X' and they go off and pretty much follow the story with different characters. There are a couple really nice ones out there, don't get me wrong, it's just after you see pretty much the same story over and over, it gets kind of old._

_And there is the huge amount of people from the US all the way to East Asia, Indonesia and everywhere in between. Thank you all for the views!_

_So, read, review and give questions when you have them, okay?_

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><p><em><strong>First Blood<strong>_

Alyssa Blackadder, or more preferably 'Lady Blackadder', sat at a small rotund table that rested on the veranda of the second floor of the Blackadder manor. It has been just under a week since her only son, Edmund, left to go see if there were indeed foreigners arriving in their lands. A week of quiet nights without her only son doing something asinine enough to make them have to find, and talk to each other.

She closed her eyes in an attempt to get rid of the moisture that started to gather there. He was her only son and the one true thing her husband left behind in the world, it would be unthinkable if anything had happened to her lovely little boy. She opened her eyes and looked under the table to find her familiar coiled around the single leg, she reached down to it and let it slide up her arm.

The refreshing coolness of the frost serpent brought her back to her 'normal' self just in time as a servant approached with a tea pot and a single cup on a tray, "Lady Blackadder, your tea is ready."

She looked at the young woman in the maid's uniform and made her jump; the way the Lady Blackadder's eyes were set made her look like she had a constant glower on her face, a trait she thanked Brimir every day for.

The young maid set the tray onto the table and began to shakily pour tea into the decorative floral cup, and when she was finished the maid stepped away, letting the Mistress of the Blackadder family take a single closed eye sip of her tea.

"What is it girl?" eyes still closed she spoke to the servant girl.

The younger servant girl stuttered for a moment before speaking, "Um… Lord Reese has arrived and is currently waiting down in the parlor."

This time she scowled, more at the mention of Sir Reese than at the girl for not immediately saying that the man was in her parlor. His unexpected arrival was sure to cause some trouble within the manor.

A sigh from the older woman, "Fine, tell the man he may join me up on the veranda."

The young maid curtsied and left in a hurry, leaving the older woman alone. She set her arm down on the top of the table, letting her familiar slither off; she tapped her fingers on the table to get the frost covered snake's attention, "If he gets close enough, you may bite him."

It was incredibly petty, but getting a small dose of freezing liquid in his veins seemed fair enough inside the elder Blackadder's mind for having sent her only son on some foolhardy errand he has yet to return from. She took another sip of the tea as she stared off towards the forest that started just beyond a large garden that was well tended by a select few gardeners.

"The day is quite lovely is it not, Lady Blackadder?"

The tired voice of the nobleman crept up onto her right; she turned her head slightly to see him walking over to stand on the opposite side of the table. She noted what he was wearing with enough suspicion in her mind to subconsciously grip her wand that was hidden in her clothes. He wore his battle armor which consisted of a cuirass, greaves, vambraces and was carrying his helm in the crook of his arm. She also noted that his thighs were wrapped heavily in bandages.

Lord Reese coughed into his hand before speaking, "You're most likely wondering why I have arrived on your metaphorical doorstep the way I'm dressed, as it were."

A long moment of silence passed between the two and Reese ran his open hand through his green hair as he stared out towards the trees, she sighed, "Sir Reese, it is an honor to have your graces, but, what may I presume of our unscheduled meeting?"

The man smiled tiredly, and a slight chuckle escaped his crooked mouth, "I'm just trying to think of a way to say what I have to say."

This got Lady Blackadder's attention; she normally had problems just getting the man to shut up, now here he was trying his best to speak.

"Then say it bluntly if you have to." She squinted at the man as he made a few more mental decisions before deciding to speak.

"My men were attacked four days ago, not by a rabble of peasant rebels or even a group of orcs, no," He looked towards the trees again, "They were attacked by... Well… Monsters."

She looked fully at the man now, "Now you are telling me of monsters, Sir Reese? My son has yet to return from looking for your gibberish speaking people, and now you speak of monsters to me."

She set her now empty cup onto the table, stood, turned towards the man and glared, "You are going to tell me what incompetent plan you have come up with that involves my son leaving my side, Arnold, speak now or I. _Will_. _**End**__ you_."

Reese put his open hand up defensively and looked confused, "Edmund hasn't returned? I saw him the day after my men were attacked, and he said that he was going to look over by the old mines before returning home."

She still glared at the man; after all, many nobles have been killing each other off ever since the end of the invasion a month and a half ago. But with the look of absolute stupefaction that warped his face even she, begrudgingly, can admit he wasn't planning anything. Maybe he genuinely cared about the little alliance between their families… Or he was really stupid.

She closed her eyes and brushed her hair away from her face, "I apologize for my outburst, Sir Reese. I'm just worried about… my…"

The Lady Blackadder trailed off as she opened her eyes and saw Sir Reese stare off into the trees. Following what he was looking at her, body clenched, coming from the trees and heading towards her garden was Edmund. The young man walked as if he had been drinking for days on end, he would stumble but stand back up, and he made it halfway through the garden before finally collapsing onto the rim of the small tiered fountain.

There was shouting after that, from her and Sir Reese for multiple reasons, someone yelled for a healer and the other at Edmund himself, she never found out who yelled for what. She ran down the stairs towards her son but was beaten to him by the nobleman because of the long damnable skirt that she wore for the day, she saw Reese yank the boy out of the fountain and lay him on his back.

Edmund threw a weak punch at the man but was quickly subdued by the older gentleman. When the Lady Blackadder finally got to the side of her only son, he was reduced to a sobbing wreck as he gripped the neckline of Sir Reese's armor, and tried to hide his face.

The healers appeared shortly after and carried Edmund off towards his room to be looked over, leaving the lady of the Blackadder house and the head nobleman of the Reese family alone out and speechless in the garden.

"So," The mother of Edmund Blackadder began, "Your men were attacked? Explain every last detail about where and what these monsters looked like."

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><p>Lady Blackadder stood outside her son's room processing the information that Sir Reese had given her; Nobleman Reese had issued a decree to take away the women and children of a certain troublesome village and would only return them if they started listening to him, under normal circumstance; acceptable. But when the peasantry is almost revolting to begin with, not the best course of action.<p>

Hell if it wasn't for the monsters body, she would've just written it off as an uprising and dispatched her house's men-at-arms alongside Reese's. But the body of the beast he described was odd, a large creature ten feet in length and five feet from paw to shoulder. That's right a _paw,_ he further described that it had the body of a wolf with a bear-like face, covered in claw and bite marks and its shoulders were almost entirely muscle. Further questioning of how he knew its shoulder were naught but muscle, he explained that a large gash was cut by a man-at-arms halberd, how they knew it was a man-at-arms was because what was left of the man was in the beast's mouth.

She wanted to know of the woman and children but Reese also explained that there were no bodies of the woman and children, only his men-at-arms were ripped apart by the beasts. He further explained that the beast that had died, was wearing a crude leather saddle. This left many questions in the Lady Blackadder's mind, how would you train a beast of that size and strength? How come no one's ever seen such a beast before in these lands?

The foreigners were the only explanation that she could blame, and that was only plausible if they existed. She was roused from her deep thought when the door of the room was opened and the low-class noble healer that was brought stepped out, before he could close the door she could see a glimpse of her son laying in his bed.

"He is physically healthy," The healer began, "He has no wounds that I could find, internal or external. In fact the only problems I could find with his physical being were a pair of hand shaped bruise marks on the sides of his head. But his mind," He stopped for a moment and scrunched his face in thought and continued, "It's… broken; he keeps talking about a woman in green, an 'Empire of Acheron' as well as wondering where his familiar is. And knowing that if a mage cannot feel their familiar, it means only one thing…"

"She died." She finished the healer's sentence and he nodded gravely, she _motioned,_ not asked if she could see her son, and the healer stepped away. Upon entering the room she noted that a maidservant was sitting at his bedside and watched as the young man slept. Lady Blackadder moved to the opposite side and sat at the edge of the bed, she moved to brush some hair away from Edmund's face and saw for herself the bruises on the side of his head. Almost like a dainty pair of hands just gripped the size of his head and squeezed.

She moved her hand away from Edmund's face when he opened his eyes, just looking into his eyes she could tell he wasn't fully there anymore. A cruel bit of Irony that the boy survived a civil war, an invasion, back stabbers that she never once told him about and finally had his mind shattered trying to find a group of people.

The younger Blackadder opened his mouth and whispered, "She wore green."

"Who wore green, Edmund?" It might be a fragment of his mind or one of the people she had sent him out to find, and she will find out now.

He looked towards the servant girl, and then past her towards the window, "The blindfolded woman," He started to breathe harder, "She wore green, she took Mary from me, and looked inside."

This confused her, "She looked inside of Mary, Edmund?"

He turned his head so fast it caused both herself and the servant girl to jump in place before he continued, "My head!" He started to shake and he began to fight himself as his body began to convulse, "She looked inside my head! Back when I argued with father, when I fought with him, every conversation me and you ever had together, and every single battle!"

The elder Blackadder yelled at the servant girl to get the healer back as she held her son against the bed. He continued yelling, "Every war meeting, every time Mary and I swooped out of the sky to attack a formation, every aerial battle! She watched it all, over and over and over again!"

The healer came back and used his water magic to calm Edmund down again but he kept yelling, "They came to conquer! They want to put us under their boot heel and make a colony for their white haired spawn! The Acheronians are coming, their coming for our blood!" Edmund started to slobber at the mouth and it took some time before he eventually was put to sleep. The healer was about to turn on the elder Blackadder, but stopped when he saw the look on the woman's face. She turned and left the room, saying nothing to the people that helped her son, saying nothing to any of the servants that she passed in the hall.

She made her way towards the parlor that was always used to house guests before a banquet or just for common talk. She opened the double door and walked inside to see Sir Reese and the captain of his men-at-arms waiting impatiently, they both turned and Sir Reese was about to speak but Lady Blackadder silenced him before he could. She motioned for a butler in the corner, "Go fetch captain Jeremiah, and send a young lady up with tea."

She moved and sat down on one of the two couches, again Reese tried to speak and again he was silenced without a word. A few minutes passed before a young maid arrived with a pot of tea and began to pour three cups for the two men and mistress of the house, the lady motioned for the young woman to wait inside the room as well. A few more minutes after that and the captain of the Blackadder men-at-arms arrived.

His perplexed look towards nobleman Reese and his captain was enough to make them all look towards the, unknown to them; forced, calm glowering demeanor of Alyssa Blackadder.

"Jeremiah, could you send letters to all those that are allied with us, as well as to Londinium?"

With the confused look from the three not counting the maid, she continued, "It seems, The Holy Republic of Albion has been invaded by a foreign power from across the great ocean."

The Lady Blackadder went on to explain her theory, the people speaking gibberish, the men attacking Sir Reese's caravan of imprisoned women and children, and eventually Edmund's outburst not a half hour before.

Jeremiah stood from where he was sitting during his lady's explanation, "Milady, I'll go prepare and call up the levies." He bowed slightly before leaving.

Sir Reese and his captain left just as quickly, saying that they'll bring their own men-at-arms and peasant levies, leaving the elder Blackadder alone with the single maid. She finished what was left in the tea pot and stood, turning towards the door and the maid, and said with what might have been a more threatening voice than intended, "Come help me with my armor."

* * *

><p>Antarios looked at the planning table before him; essentially a giant tray filled with dirt in the form of two mounds representing the low mountains, a long broken row of shortened twigs at the edge of a small furrow represented a palisade built by the legion in front of a man made ditch, and finally stones, bark and gold coins representing the locations of the mangonel's, ballistae and the formations of cohorts respectively.<p>

An entirely simple formation, the four mangonel's were located on top of the hills, the twelve ballistae were spread about behind the five forward cohorts of legionnaires, and auxiliary forces spread along the flanks. Thinking of his auxiliaries, Antarios looked up at his fellow commanders, not counting the half dozen centurions, there were three men and three women.

Arturia and the Ley Mother stood to his right making minor adjustments to the impromptu ballistae, and the location of where the Ley Sisters would be to avoid the main fighting but still provide support in some way. Just past them was the third woman, her head clean shaven except for long strands of red hair going down the exact center of her scalp from her forehead to the nape of her neck and a mask of some daemon sitting around her neck. She wore just as much as the Ley Mother and that is to say barely anything. She wore enough cloth to hide her breasts, hips and upper legs, but nothing else. She was the newest addition to the sixty-seventh, a witch from the Mohawk tribes of north eastern Acheron. She was simply called 'Witch', by herself, her men that followed her, and by everyone in the sixty-seventh.

Antarios looked over at the three unique men, one of which was simply the commander of the fleet that brought them here. A short man, barely reaching the generals shoulder and generic looking by any full blooded acheronian standards, short white curly hair, tan skin and a thin nose. His name was Longinus, and the only reason he was there was because Antarios gave him orders to defend the main camp _if _anything truly horrifying happened to the legion.

The man standing next to him was taller but much thinner and covered in claw and bite marks; he was clad in simple furs and wore little to no armor except for a small metal cap like helm he carried at his side. He was of the plain peoples of north Acheron and could easily be identified with his yellow hair. He was the leader of the mounted warriors within the legion, of which they were responsible for freeing some women and children that were found earlier in the acheronian arrival. His grey furred mount was busy snoring outside the command tent as well, a large beast, like a mixture of a bear and wolf with the speed of a mountain jaguar. He was called Swiftpaw by his fellow riders, and deserved that name if Antarios thought long enough about it.

The final man could be the most frightening out of everyone here; the leader of the Numite warriors, his name was Samedi and he was a giant. His skin was as black as burnt coals; he stood a head _taller_ than Antarios, and was the most heavily armored. A sword almost as long as he was tall was planted firmly in the ground between his feet, in battle it would be used in a whirling motion, the weight of the blade plus the strength of the man who wielded it could easily break a shield wall. The blade was called a 'Khanda' and was the most common weapon amongst the warriors of the Numite city-states.

Antarios leaned up from his position at the table and received the attention of all those that attended, "Alright, from what Swiftpaw reported; the natives are gathering a small force to meet us, nearby is where we are going to meet them in combat. These hills," He motioned towards the mounds, "will act as an improvised fort and it will be the legions job to hold their main tide back."

"Arturia, you know the drill, a legionnaire keeps them still…" He started

And was finished by his sister with a nod, "And the engineers brush them aside."

"Good," He continued, "Witch; I want you and your tribesman to act as skirmishers, keep them on their toes, handle them like you would handle a fight with my men. Taunt them, strike them, and get them to come to us, just do not get close enough to strike with spears unless you have to."

A slight nod from the witch before Antarios continued, "Swiftpaw, you will make yourself useful, if you see their beasts… what were they called, whores?"

A slight chuckle escaped everyone before the beast rider spoke in his hollow sounding voice, "The woman said '_Horse'_, and my earlier fight with them showed to me that they are not like the feral-kin, and the rider is supposedly more frightening to fight than the beast. My warriors and kin will make short work of their beasts and riders."

"Hmph," A grunt of confirmation from the general, "I want you hidden on my left flank, if they break; ride them down. If they bring these _horses_, I want you to break them up before they become a hassle on my flanks. But don't underestimate them, even a pict will start thinking if it means he could get away from a losing fight."

Antarios stood fully and crossed his arms over his unarmored chest, "Samedi, you were a general, where am I going to place you."

A white toothed smile broke the dark skinned giants face, "Where are ya' goin' to be placin' me, eh? We've been fighin' togetha' for a while now…"

The Numite stopped to think, while he was doing that Antarios looked at his sister and saw a smile form on her face. She always liked the sound of the Numite people speaking traditional acheronian, they just about butchered every word, but Antarios had to admit that it indeed sounded nice with his deep long drawling.

"Da' right flank." The warrior started, "You be placin' me in da' trees on da' right flank, coverin' you from ambusha's and flanka's."

"Exactly, Samedi, you will cover my right flank. If anything goes wrong on the main line come out and greet them in the traditional Numite fashion. If not, push inside the trees to their flank. Understood?"

A deep chortle escaped the giant of a man, a generally accepted answer of agreement.

"Longinus, you know your mission, do **not** foul up. As for my centurions…" The acheronian general turned towards the half dozen cohort commanders, "You know combat as well as anybody, hold the established line and advance when ordered, revolve your men when needed and do not break formation. Understood?"

A small chorus of grunts replied to the general as he moved into a position to see everyone in the command tent, "Alright, everyone is dismissed."

Everyone filed out quickly; Antarios could hear Semedi and the Witch start to trade venomous little insults as soon as they thought they were out of earshot. He blamed the culture differences between the two. The Numites didn't have the strongest trust in magic, as they normally bind them in chains and keep them more akin to how one would train a feathered serpent, while the Mohawk peoples that the Witch was from viewed them as people who could speak for those in the Summerland.

Antarios sat down on a nearby stool and rubbed his face with both hands.

"Stressed, Antarios?"

Looking through his fingers he saw that the Ley Mother hadn't moved at all since she arrived nearly a half hour ago, "What is it, Myrrha?"

An informal way of speaking to someone that was a Mother, newly appointed mind you, of the Ley Temple. He turned around on his stool and rested the back of his head on the planning table and closed his eyes. She moved slowly, the jingling of the belt around her waist let him know she was standing in front of him, and the feeling of pressure on his lap and chest…

"What are you doing?"

"What I've always done in times like this," Antarios opened his eyes to see that the Ley Mother had just sat on his lap, was leaning into his chest and only a few hairs away from his face. She pushed her hair over his head, hiding them both behind a shroud of long white hair and gold beads, her green blindfold were just about the only thing he could see.

"Myrrha," He whispered, seeing the moment deserved near silence, while she ran her hands up the sides of his face, "as much as I would like to, now is not the time. We have a battle-"

The Ley Mother nibbled the tip of his nose, and he grunted as a sudden warm feeling spread through his face and down through his body. He raised his hands and gripped her waist and squeezed, the normally quiet and reserved mage priestess giggled like a child, "That was not very nice general, especially, when a Ley Mother gives you her blessing."

He smiled, "As much work that lies ahead of me, I think I can have a quick blessing from a young Ley Mother." He gently lifted the woman and set themselves both on the ground, the young priestess giggling the whole time…

It was some time before the general of the sixty-seventh legion of Acheron and the Mother of the Ley Temple left the planning tent with what looked like large smiles on their faces.

* * *

><p>Witch looked towards the encampment of the natives of the floating island; it was a single day since the defensive planning and early morning, and the fact she located the camp only a few kilometers away from where her acheronian employer was just a wonderful occurrence. She stood in plain view of the native Albion camp, if anyone decided to look up they could clearly see her looking over their camp.<p>

A note she instantly made is the fact it looked, compared to the acheronian legions, haphazardly built. No straight rows, no tent looked the same, and most of their men just slept under the open sky with what gear they had. And looking to the opposite side of the camp towards a stream, she could clearly see a man relieve himself just upstream, but out of sight, of men gathering water in buckets to give to other men.

She could only think to call these pale skinned men savages, because of the stupidity none of _her_ or anyone's men would do that would get everyone sick. And the fact that they wore _so _much clothes, really it wasn't snowing so why wear so much?

A sharp ear splitting whistle came from a masked warrior to the Witch's right, which in turn caused the majority of the wakened and awaking men to look towards the group of men and a woman looking down on them from a hill. Most of her warriors were stripped to the waist and covered in black and blue war paints; they all had masks as was tradition amongst the Mohawk warriors of north-eastern Acheron, most had bows, some had spears. The Witch on the other hand carried a knife, an odd knife that was made in Albion; it was thin and flat and was just about as long as her forearm… which reminded her.

"Quiet." A single word that instantly silenced all of the men in the group, "Bring them forward."

Two men were dragged in front of Witch, both were gagged and bound. She and her men had captured them when they walked almost on top of one of her warriors, and she presumed they were scouts, and so they would serve her purpose. They were knelt facing towards the albionian camp, and were ungagged, which resulted in them screaming in their native tongue, most likely for help. Both were pushed onto a pair of nearby rocks, they were still screaming and the sound was starting to annoy her.

She waved her hand and one of her warriors raised a metal club and brought it down with a sickening crunch, killing one of the captured men, which resulted in the other screaming louder. A number of thunders claps from the camp below, made her men duck and look towards a very small number of albionians with long sticks of metal and wood that spat smoke.

She paid no mind to it but her men started to panic, she waved again, and the second man's head was dashed upon the rock. The men from the camp below started to run up the hill towards them, some even firing those thunder sticks which caused the air to zip and small amounts of dirt to fly into the air. Her warriors started shooting arrows into the advancing men.

Her warriors aimed for the men with thunder sticks, looking into the mass of men, she saw an older man take an arrow to the left eye and fall soundlessly, and the Witch thought to herself that they had spent enough time here, "Run."

A simple order and she and her men bolted into the tree. For a good part of the morning her warriors outpaced the natives but kept in their sights, whenever the albionians started to lose interest, her warriors would double back and shoot them in the back and make them pursue further.

Witch ran towards the acheronian lines; she was only about a half kilometer away from the palisades, and she could practically feel the life coming from them. That's when an albionian stepped out from behind a tree with a short bow not unlike her warriors. She stopped dead as the man leveled an arrow, he spoke, like she could understand him.

She stepped forward and the man barked out something, she raised her hand at the man and he seemed to flinch, but he kept his bow leveled at her. She waved her hand, and the man burst into deep black flames, his screeching filled the air. Her body shuddered to the core at the sound, it sounded so _**beautiful**_. Witch just couldn't wait until the real battles start; she lived for the screaming, the dying, and the blood that turns the dirt beneath her feet into mud.

Stepping over the cindered bones of what used to be a man, she stepped out of the forest at the same time her warriors did, and crossed the soon to be killing field towards the waiting lines of acheronian legionnaires.

* * *

><p>Cimon stood at attention amongst the front row of the fifth cohort, his shield stood chest high to him as it rested on the ground with his hands on the top rim, a pair of javelins sat in the crook of his elbow with their points into the dirt. He reached up to scratch his brow where his lifted helmet rested, while doing that he looked at the Mohawk skirmishers crossing the field, some would turn and shoot arrows into the trees and at any enemy skirmisher that presented themself.<p>

Looking to his left, right and behind him and again counted the men. Between him and his centurion were three men to his left, to his right were five and there were nine men behind him. He stood in the exact center of the first row of the fifth cohort; the young man kept fidgeting with his armor and recounting his weapons trying to get his mind off the fact that he was going to be one of the first men of the actual legionnaires to fight a new foe.

He started to feel a tugging sensation on his back, looking behind him he looked at the man, who spoke before he could, "Turn back around, your armors starting to come loose from you fidgeting with it."

Cimon did what he was told and let the man retie his straps, he continued talking, "Names Skantarios, so, how long you been in the legion to have you fidget so much, eh?"

"Um, three months…" Cimon heard Skantarios let out a low whistle, Cimon finished, "If you count training and getting to this floating island."

The man laughed before giving an answer as well, "A year for me now, so you're as green as green can be, eh? I joined because I wanted to finally get out of my family's place. How about you, eh?"

Cimon chuckled, his body started to stop fidgeting, "I was trying to get my own business started selling jewelry, nice sapphires embedded onto bronze. The girls back home just loved the things I made, even met a girl with blue eyes once." That got a whistle from people around him.

Skantarios tapped his shoulder letting him know he was done, "Why leave all them pretty girls alone with other boys, eh? Make a lot of daddies mad?"

Cimon chuckled, "No, wish it was that," A heavy sigh escaped him, "Some bastard with a golden tongue made me buy fifteen hundred ducats worth of dirt gems, they all broke apart when I tried to set them in the bronze."

Skantarios and a few other men chuckled out Ow's before letting Cimon finish, "So I joined the legion to get away from some loan sharks, you all want to know the worst part of it all?" After a unanimous agreement all round, he turned his head towards Skantarios and continued, "I lived on the beaches of the north Acheron panhandle."

That received a large laugh from everyone, which was quickly stifled when a shout from their centurion asked for quiet from the ranks. Looking back to the field in front of him, Cimon noticed why. The native army was starting to assemble on the opposite side of the field, close to about twelve hundred meters away. From what he could see, poorly formed ranks, and each person was armed differently, some tried to stick to people that had the same weapon, but even in Cimon's eyes, a raw recruit legionnaire, they seemed absolutely _pathetic._

A horn blast from the acheronian rear and all centurions immediately started to give orders, "Helmets on the brow!" All legionaries in the front line raised a hand and pulled their helmets over their faces, "Shields on the brace!" All legionnaires shuffled one javelin into their right hands lifted their shields with their left arm and held onto the extra javelin in their free left hand. "Prepare for attack!" With a grunt of confirmation the entire legion stepped back with their right foot and showed the natives who arrived on their floating shores.

The spinning red triskelion adorned each and every purple shield, the ancient symbol of the Empire of Acheron, a symbol of power, a symbol made by the First emperor himself, a symbol that _will_ be feared in this new land.

Cimon took a deep breath before letting it out, the fright and nervousness he had earlier was quickly replaced by another feeling; excitement, he was going to be one of the first men to fight a new foe in over fifteen hundred years.

* * *

><p>Sir Arnold Reese, a nobleman of northern Albion looked towards the army arrayed in front of him. He had marched his men straight into this fight expecting to fight those half naked cowards; instead he marches straight into an actual army.<p>

Across the field he could see five major groupings of men, ten rows wide and as best he could tell eight rows deep. A quick mathematician's question; that would make about four hundred men in total, and that wasn't counting the men behind them on the hills working the large crossbows and what looked like large catapults.

"Sir Reese, prepare the cavalry to charge." The cold voice of Lady Blackadder broke him from his musings; her voice had just the subtlest amount of confidence, and he could clearly see why, which the combined forces of several nobles (along with their sons) with forces of varying size, they had a grand total of ten mages, one-hundred mounted yeoman, one-hundred-fifty men-at-arms, another one-hundred-fifty mercenaries and about three-hundred peasant militia with varying weapons.

They probably could've brought twice that amount if it hadn't been for the invasion, and the recent battle with a group of nobles to the east. If wishes were men, the army of Blackadder alliance would've outnumbered these foreigners twelve-to-one.

He let out a sigh, _for the want of a nail_.

Sir Reese moved alongside three other noblemen, and they spread along the line of mounted yeoman. Looking down the line to his left, he received nods from the two mage-knights, raising an ornate sword wand, "Forward at the half step!" His order was repeated a number of times before his long formation moved forward.

Half way across the field his formation of cavalry went from a simple canter to a trot and they gained speed, getting ready to smash into the large shielded infantry, Reese was about to make his horse go into a sprint when the sound of baying wolves got his attention. He looked to his right and saw at least three dozen of the beasts that he had seen only a week and a half ago, all being ridden by men that barely wore armor and carried only knives.

He wheeled his section of thirty yeomen to meet these beasts, when they got close enough lances were pointed and a shout went up, it was then when Sir Reese realized that the men didn't carry weapons for a reason, as many of the large beasts _leapt_ into the air over the lowered lances and landed on both horse and rider knocking them to the ground. Others tried to ride underneath the lance, and were gifted with a lance into their thick fur covered hides or a riders near unarmored chest

Reese saw one yeoman knock a passing rider straight from his saddle with the butt of a broken lance, before the beast turned and from a dead stop charged after the full galloping horse, leapt and pulled the rider from his saddle. Reese was so well entranced in the other fights he almost didn't notice the large grey beast pounce onto his own mount.

Getting knocked off a horse running almost full tilt was a dangerous experience, and Sir Reese had learned long ago what to do as he rolled for at least three meters across the ground. He was looking unceremoniously at the ground with his face in the dirt; he looked up to see how his men were faring and saw one of the wolf beasts gnawing on the neck of a horse.

He looked towards the rider of the beast and he made eye contact with the girl, not a man or a full grown woman but a young girl with teal colored hair, she looked at him and him at her. Reese tried to raise his right arm and cast a spell but the intense pain caused him to stop, looking towards his arm he saw it was twisted in an odd twisted position.

"Dear Brimir…"

He looked back at the girl, and saw that the wolf/bear/monster was looking at him. He heard the girl click her teeth under the sound of battle, and the beast's ears flattened against it head and bare large yellow fangs. The beast leapt over the horse's body and made a full sprint towards Reese as he screamed the whole time.

The last things Arnold Reese ever saw in his life were the teeth of a three year old Feral-kin's gaping jaw, and the young cold eyes of a thirteen year old plains girl.

* * *

><p>Arturia could see the entire native force from her position on the hill, and besides for the horse riders <strong>brazen<strong> charge across the open field (Which she didn't think anyone would be dumb enough to try, after all who charges a fixed position with a group more geared towards flanking and routing? Even picts are smarter.) she wasn't surprised, they had their more heavily armored men towards the center and were supported on the flanks by men carrying what looked like farming hoes, it probably was a cultural weapon.

What horse riders that didn't end up fighting the plains men kept charging towards the fixed lines of the first, second, and third cohorts. She noticed something then, when the riders nearer the sides of a legionnaire formation broke off to go in between the cohorts and keep riding towards the palisade, maybe horses were scared of purple, or polished javelin heads, or squares. She shrugged to herself, maybe she'll never know.

The majority of the riders that hit dead center of a formation though, were greeted with over thirty javelins from the first three ranks alone and then were stopped dead (Literally!) when they smashed into raised shields and quick moving thrusting swords of the first and second cohorts. The ones that rode in between the cohorts found themselves charging full tilt into a ditch near filled to the brim with steel tipped and poisoned stakes, their ends would either be extremely quick or agonizingly slow.

The opening moves of the battle were short but incredibly bloody and a rather large number of their horse turned tail and ran across the field to their side. This is when Arturia Parlathan smiled, as she saw that their main force, in a light jog, had crossed an invisible line that she had marked inside her head.

She turned towards an engineer captain, "Order mangonels to fire a volley, and tell the ballistae they may fire at will when the natives get into range."

The man grunted in affirmation and shouted her orders to the weapon crews. The twelve man crews of the mangonels had already winched the machines into a firing position and loaded their deadly cargo, and were waiting for the order to release their fury. The sound of rapidly clanking chains, followed by a _whoompf-whack _sound of the beam and cross bar striking each other let her know that the large barrels were released into the air towards their target.

Anybody within the more civilized areas of Acheron could tell you that the legion uses a very flammable substance as a weapon to attack, defend and to use as a distraction. What most citizens don't know is It's was always kept in a liquid form until release, when the liquid is finally exposed to the air…

Four separate roars were heard from across the fields as the fire bombs exploded randomly amidst the formations of men, one landed short and another over shot, another exploded on the far right and caused the men there to falter for a moment before they kept advancing, the final barrel though landed amidst the left flank and caused the men there to break and run. What she didn't expect were small breaths of flame to keep attacking the retreating men that were well away from the central blast.

The natives have had their first taste of Acheronian fire.

She put that aside as they entered the range of the ballistae; these weren't like the mangonels that fire a single heavy combustive shot, they were different altogether. They were only invented in the past five hundred years, but that was enough time to learn their uses properly. The _tnnngg-tnnngg-tnnngg _staccato sound of the heavy repeating weapons as they released their meter long payloads into the ranks of the heavily armored center, sounded almost like a child plucking at a tightly bound leather string.

It was a proverbial rain of steel as it were.

Arturia looked down towards her brother, who had revolved his cohort so that men with both javelins stood at the front rows, and smiled. She knew she could never serve on the front line like her older brother, being female means she'll never get the centurions or even a legionnaire's shield, but why would she want a position where you have to yell non-stop? She much rather preferred the position of Master of Engines, the smell of polished metal, cured lumber and the thick stench of leather and rope were more than enough for her. Besides, she could still become general of her own legion if her brother decided to give a recommendation.

* * *

><p>Viktor Rothman was a germanian that has served within the <em>'Band of the Hawk'<em> mercenary company for more than four years, who has risen quite fast amongst its ranks, and eventually become its captain. He first arrived on Albion during the kingdoms civil war and fought on the defenders side of the war, as they were paying high and were desperate for almost anything to save them.

When the Tudors lost, Viktor was about to jump ship and leave Albion for another random conflict on the main land, that's when Albion declared war and was eventually invaded by the weak Tristain and his own fatherlands army. He quickly signed up for the new Albion's forces expecting a short war and easy pay. This wasn't the case as he was in the attack that was planning on wiping out the remaining forces as they were almost literally pushed off the edge of the floating Island.

On the fields of Saxe-Gotha the entire army of mercenaries, men-at-arms, mage knights, and other weapons and men were stopped near dead by, well, Viktor himself didn't know as he was on the far left flank and whatever attacked the army attacked straight down the middle. But whatever it was stopped the entire army for a number of days and helped the tristinian and germanians armies escape.

Right that minute for him and his men was probably like what the army of Saxe-Gotha must've faced, for half of his men were dead and they were barely crossed the field towards this strange army. Meter long bolts were ripping into his men and pinning them to the ground, or were cleaving off limbs of multiple men at a time and were left for dead by the rest of the charge.

They had finally gotten close enough that he could make out face in their forces, if they didn't hide their face behind full faced helms that is. A few men amongst the line fired muskets, and some mages that were still alive opened up as well, he saw shots break shields but not shatter them, and he saw what men that were wounded behind their shields dragged back and replaced by men that weren't.

Only a dozen steps more and he would be making these strange men pay for killing almost all of his men. Their shields moved aside, Viktor stopped and raised his own shield as the first number of their rows let loose dozens of javelins. One hit a man standing next to Viktor in the gut and was quickly swarmed over by the survivors as they rushed to close the gap, another volley of the javelins nearly stopped the charge completely, but they carried right into the purple shields of these strange men with no momentum.

Viktor tried moving but one of the javelins hit his shield and bent it into an irremovable mass, he dropped his shield and carried on towards a warrior in their line that had a large plume of his own helm. He roared out a soundless battle cry, stepped forward and put all his strength into striking the shield with his mace. It cracked the shield but stopped the blow dead, Viktor's eyes near bulged out of his head as it barely did any damage whatsoever. The man he struck blew a loud whistle, and the entire line of warriors pushed their shields forwards and smashed his mercenaries back while his own arm was blown back and away.

He saw all but the man in front of him keep their shield forward and dissolve into the ranks behind them as the man that was behind them rushed forward into the gap to hide behind their shields and take random stabs into the guts, necks, and legs of his own men. The man with the plume kicked Viktor in his forward most leg and if it wasn't for the sounds of battle he could have heard it snap from the pressure.

The whistle sounded again, and the ranks pushed and revolved again, the plume helmed man stepped forward and smashed his large shield into Viktor's guts, which caused him to turn the lower part of the purple shield with the odd symbol into a dark red wall as he vomited up the blood that entered his stomach. Opening up his eyes, Viktor saw a reflection of his own pained face in a dozen tiny metal studs before searing pain filled his skull.

Viktor Rothman, twenty-nine year old germanian mercenary captain of the '_Band of the Hawk'_ had his career officially end when his head was smashed open by a club used to punish asinine legionaries by a centurion who's name will never be recorded into the annals of history.

* * *

><p>The battle ended almost as quickly as it started. The leader of the Blackadder alliance, and her son, went missing shortly afterward, to where no one truly found out. But that doesn't matter at the moment; scenes like those that took place at the 'First Encounter of Acheron' were repeated almost a <em>dozen<em> times all over the island of Albion.

Within a month the sixty-seventh legion was supported by the newly formed sixty-eighth legion, the more experienced twenty-third legion and a supplement of warships.

Within two months of arrival, the legions had placed the capital of Albion, Londinium, under siege. Due to its defiance the city was reduced to nothing but ash and cinders, the emperor of Albion, Oliver Cromwell, hid amongst a large train of refugees to escape.

He didn't get far before he was assassinated, not by the Legions of Acheron, but by a bombardment from ships loyal to the kingdom of Gallia. The usurper of the Albionian throne died like a bastard whoreson of a single Écu (Or half a Ducat) whore.

Within three months, a new banner flew over the port of Dartanes, a purple cloth with with a gold trim and red spinning triskelion at its center.

All the way back in the capital of Acheron, A city built in the shape of the solar system with near perfect straight roads and aqueducts, that none in Halkeginia thought existed. A young woman sat at the edge of a warm pool of water, a single leg resting in the water as the rest of her body relaxed in the dying sunlight. Not too far away several men were placing a large piece of white cut marble inlaid with purple tiles onto a pair of thick metal poles.

As the men left to do other jobs, the nude form of the young woman swam over and stood next to the representation of the floating continent of Albion. She quickly climbed the newly placed acquisition and lounged on its ledge and looked over the entirety of the mock empire. She leaned her head over and let her knee length white hair nearly touch the water below from her new position.

She rolled to lie on her back and looked towards the sun as it started to hide behind the western Jaguar Mountains; she spread and stretched her limbs as far as she could before sitting back up and looking towards the darkening corner of the geographical bath of the world.

"I want to see this '_Albi-yon'."_

A grunt of confirmation came from the darkened corner, "As you wish, Empress of Acheron."


	3. Refugee's

_Greetings once again world! Really I have at least one view from every major country on all 6 of the major bloody continents; it's really cool how so many people from one side of the world to the other are reading (or at least skimming over) my story. Just so cool._

_Anyway, a number of you have sent PM's to me asking about modern weapons, and my answer for you all is… Drum roll, please… I Dunno yet! This takes place just after season 2 of the anime or midway of the 8__th__ light novel, and Saito's the only one that can technically understand how to use them, so if they are used (And they might, I didn't say no) they will be used on the individual scale of Saito and whoever is around him if something bigger than a Beretta shows up._

_Read, review, ask questions in the form of review and let everyone else see as well what you ask. As always, from your loving Last Stander; Enjoy!_

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><p><em><strong>Refugee's<strong>_

_One week before the port city of Dartanes capture._

A young mother knelt in front of Guard Captain Rupert, she had begged him with tears streaking her face just to let her children pass, but in what would be considered a large mercy he told her that she could go with them, "Bless you, Brimir bless you!"

"Please," He put a hand on the woman's shoulder and helped her up and to her boy and girl, "Brimir turned his back on me long ago." The woman and the children kept walking down the long well-traveled and well crowded dirt road, the little girl turned and waved at him and he waved back, albeit weakly.

Rupert had been _assigned_ to be guard captain of one of the three major roads that led into the port of Dartanes, the city and roads were absolutely flooded with refugee's carrying all they could as they tried to escape the encroaching army of the mysterious empire from the west. He personally thought it was all futile; this army would probably go straight to the mainland, and after they burn all that to ash, where to next? The Holy Land?

Rupert let out a sigh as the men under his command kept checking the wagons and carts of passing refugee's, even forcing some to leave those very carts behind and carry only what they could on their backs. Looking down the long rode at the hundreds of people walking, he could just barely fight off the extreme amount of heartache that came with the sight, and he went back to work of talking the refugee's into leaving possessions behind.

A group of younger people came in Rupert's direction, and besides for what he assumed to be the eldest, looked confused as to what was going on. He did a quick once over and counted four young women in varying styles of clothes, a black haired girl in a maids uniform, a strawberry-blonde (pink really) haired girl that wore a cloak, and a short haired blonde woman but this time she wore what looked like light armor and carried a saber.

But the boy in the group is what caught his eye, a young lad with black hair and wore a strange blue and white coat and pants of strange materials. But what had caught Rupert's eye in the first place was a large sword strapped to his back, when the group passed he walked up and put his hand firmly on the lads shoulder, "I'm sorry lad, but I'm going to have to stop you."

The boy nearly jumped out of his skin and the group turned around at Rupert's voice, the blonde woman put a hand on her blade, the maid gripped a frying pan, and the strawberry-blonde hid a hand in her cloak.

Rupert let go and put his hands up between himself and the group, "Whoa now, I don't wanna fight, just need to talk," He put his hand forward to the boy, "Guardsmen- sorry, Guard _Captain_ Rupert."

The boy reluctantly grabbed his hand and shook, "Hiraga Saito," They both turned at the sound of a young man screaming bloody murder, as an older wavy haired woman and another young woman tried to calm him down, "What exactly is going on here?"

"Refugee check, anything that takes too much space is to be left behind before entering Dartanes. Carts, wagons, crates… even the sick and elderly if the Viscount had his way."

The pink haired girl said something under her breath that sounded suspiciously along the lines of '_How barbaric'_, Rupert countered, "It might be _barbaric, _but if the majority of these people want to live, they'll have to bear leaving some things behind."

The girl's face turned bright red, and the young woman in the maid's uniform put a hand on her shoulder to calm her down, then what the boy said absolutely shocked Rupert, "Alright, but what exactly are they all running from?"

"Where you been living, boy, under a rock?"

"N-no…"

"With that look on your face I'm going to assume you have, Albion's been invaded, _again_, from the north this time-"

"That's not possible; no nation has ships that can travel that far with wind stones." The armed woman interrupted him, "It's the whole reason that Tristain and Germania landed in Portsmouth and Dartanes."

"I never said they were from the mainland, woman." The looks of confusion crossed all their faces and he sighed loudly as he realized he was going to have to explain to backwater villagers out for a stroll, "Around two months ago some group of people landed in the north and completely wiped out a force that went to meet them, since then, every army that the nobility gotten together was ripped apart."

He motioned to some of his men, "The ones with the blank stares are the ones that decided to run instead of staying in a losing fight," He sighed, again, and looked towards the road that led to the capital of Albion, "Hell, I deserted my post in Londinium as they burned it to the ground."

The blonde woman interrupted him, "Londinium's been destroyed?"

"Aye miss, it has, some strange fire that burns hotter when you throw water on it. _We_ burned half of the city to the ground before we realized what was going on."

"You deserted?" Saito said that, and caused Rupert to look at the ground in shame, "Everyone here at one point decided too at some point. Hell, it's the reason we're here, instead of having our bodies _burned_ by these men from across the Great Ocean. We came here to escape," He tugged at the blazon of Dartanes that was on his tabard, "Didn't work out to well."

The pink haired girl finally broke free of the grasp of the maid, pointed a finger in his face and screamed, "That's false! There's nothing across the ocean, it all just falls off the ledge of the world!"

"_Little girl,_" He moved her hand out of his face and leaned down to her, "Go north. Tell _them_ that."

The little girls face turned a darker shade of red than from before and, to Rupert's surprise, whipped out a small wand. The maid, the woman and Saito jumped out and grabbed the girl before she could say any cantrips or hexes. For which he was eternally great, no one could survive a magic blast at point blank, for any reason.

When his men and some refugee's started to look over he quickly shouted at them to either get back to work (his men), keep moving (woman and children), or to mind their own damned business (everyone else).

"And for all of you…" He turned back to the group as they settled down and the pink haired one was moved behind the blonde swordswoman, "Listen close and listen good because I am **not **repeating myself."

He leaned in close and they did the same, he started by whispering to Saito, "Lad, hide yourself, you won't last two minutes in Dartanes before some Guard Captain grabs you and _recruits_ you into the guard to help with the evacuation or to attack these invaders." He turned to the pink haired girl, "You, keep that damned wand hidden, you won't last half as long as the boy as they drag you off to lead said guards into a pointless fight if they see that wand."

Turning to the swordswoman, "Lose the sword and find a skirt, when they see you're able to fight they'll _hire _you as a mercenary." Finally pointing at the maid, he looked back at Saito, "And keep her well hidden, you might all end up fighting, but there are a lot of frustrated people in Dartanes that will take advantage of a girl like her."

The maid's face blanched at the thought, the swordswoman spoke up before Saito could, "We'll take your words into consideration Guard Captain, thank you for the advice."

"Aye miss, stay safe." As they walked off Rupert thought of a selfish thing, and rushed after the swordswoman, he stopped her and pulled her away from the group. He pulled a small object from his belt and handed it to her, "Could you bury this for me… It's something simple but it's the only thing I really own," His eyes started to water, "I don't w-want to be forg-"

She took the object and quieted him, "I will. I'll get you your rights."

"Thank you, miss. I know I can never repay you."

"Agnes." At the look of Rupert's confusion, she corrected herself, "My name is Agnes, Captain Rupert." She put a fist to her chest in salute; Rupert smiled weakly and saluted back.

They both went their separate way, Rupert back to watch over his men and the refugee's, Agnes to the small group of young women and Saito. Rupert would never see any of them again, but a feeling in his chest told him that he did something amazing. He put the selfish feeling away and went back to helping refugee's keep only the most sentimental of items.

* * *

><p>After being on the continent of Halkegina for just over a year, Saito still couldn't help but be surprised at certain things. The first is still and always will be the fact that he's on an alien world with two moons in the sky, the second is the fact that magic exists in this world, and finally is how the occasional weapon from his own world would arrive and change the fate of whatever was happening at the time.<p>

Saito was broken from his silent reverie by a man passing by handing out small pieces of bread to everyone that needed them; he had bumped Saito's shoulder to get his attention and handed him a piece. When Saito refused, the man's answer was short as he shoved the bread into his hands, "No point in valor, boy."

It was only a half hour after the ship had left the port of Dartanes and Saito was still dumbfounded by how many people were on the small merchant vessel, the captain said that he got rid of all the ships guns and weapons just so he could more people than normal onto the ship. Over one-hundred and fifty people, counting crew, were crammed into the ship.

Saito looked over the starboard bow of the merchant ship and looked again at the larger form of another ship beside them; Agnes told him that it was a sloop-of-war, a fast warship with only two dozen or so guns.

"Worried?"

A voice from behind, turning around he saw that it was Agnes, "Miss Vallière and Miss Siesta are down below, trying to get comfortable. But are you still worried?"

He sighed, "Yes I'm still worried," He turned and rested his arms on the railing, "if I'd known about all this beforehand I would've tried to convince Tiffa to come."

"She most likely would have declined, Saito," Agnes joined him on the railing and started fiddling with a small object, "she has a kind heart and would most likely help anyone that comes to her."

Saito looked at the captain of the queen's musketeers as she played with the small shining piece of metal, and wanting to change the subject, "Why'd he give you that little thing anyway?"

"He wanted someone to remember him," She held it up to the sun and caused a small reflection that hit Saito in the eyes, "I promised to give him a funeral… He seemed rather content with that."

They were both quiet for a moment, listening to the creaking of the ship, the talking of the passengers and the sudden crying of a baby. Saito looked over at Agnes and saw her widen her eyes in surprise as the little thing popped open and revealed a small worn down white carved profile of a young woman.

"Think he knew her?" Saito asked with genuine curiosity.

"Since she's in his locket, I would assume that he did, Saito." She closed the locket and hid it away in a belt pouch.

They both started staring out at the other ship as men rushed along its length, Saito was about to ask Agnes why she would do this for some random man when a shout from above caught both of their attention, "Ships off port bow! No masts!"

The cry from the man in the crow's nest caused everyone aboard the ship to go into a panic, Saito and Agnes ran to the opposite side of the ship and saw, even from the extreme distance, twelve strange ships.

Saito thought they all looked like long, purplish zeppelins with sloped almost flat tops; two of the ships were large and literally twice the size of the next largest ship, which was only half their length. There were four of the second largest ship, and were half the height and length of the largest ships, and the final six ships were only have the height of the second group of ships. Two of the smallest ships broke from the rest of the formation and started to move towards the refugee ship.

The captain of the ship started to yell over the panic, "Everyone please stay calm! Move below deck and do not come up until I say so!" Saito saw the captain of the ship look towards the sloop-of-war and towards her captain; they shared a nod before the sloop broke off and headed towards the two strange ships.

Moving below the crowded deck, Saito and Agnes squeezed their way towards Louise and Siesta as they and several others looked of open cannon bays at the sloop as it approached the fast moving purple ships.

The sloop fired a volley from its starboard side towards the ship. If it fired upon another ship much like its own, the sloop would've heavily damaged the ship, but this was not the case as the majority of the cannon balls _bounced_ off the sloped armor of the ship with the sound of a hammer striking anvil.

The ships of the strangers from the west were covered in metal.

The two ships split and surrounded the sloop, even in the receding distance, Saito and everyone else aboard the escaping merchant vessel heard the rapid _tnnngg-tnnngg-tnnngg_ of ballistae fire come from one of the purplish vessels and the bolts rip the fast wooden ship apart. Then to everyone's sudden horror, the ship on the opposite side of the sloop raised a small turret on top and spat a large plume of white fire that quickly started to engulf the ship.

The men aboard the sloop were brave men indeed as they fired a final volley from the cannons, that weren't destroyed, from her port side towards the fire spitting ship before turning and ramming the other with a large crash, which was followed shortly after by the rest of the sloop's gunpowder stores exploded with a ferocious bang that caused both the remains of the sloop and the strange ship to plummet to their final resting place in the ocean far below.

It was quiet aboard the merchant vessel after that, no one spoke out of fear as if the purplish ship, which turned back to its fleet, would hear them and come burn them out of the sky as well. Louise looked pale as she clung to the remains of Saito's coat; Siesta stared out of the still open cannon bay thinking about Brimir knows what, Agnes sat next to her asleep, the small pendant clutched within her hand.

Louise broke the silence, and what she said caused some people to cry in fear for their friends or families that are still in the city.

"What will happen to the people that try to get by those ships?"

* * *

><p><em>Three days after Dartanes capture.<em>

Agnes stood at the base of a tree in a cemetery just outside the city limits of Tristania, it was a warm early summer day and it didn't seem to match the mood of the solemn place.

The tree she stood under was the farthest from the entrance to the cemetery and stood highest in a walled corner casting a cool shade over Agnes and the single tombstone that sat underneath it. The day she arrived and after she witnessed Saito's knighting for his heroics, she immediately left for the nearby church and, paying from her own pocket, paid a priest for a funeral for a single man.

When he asked where the man's body was she presented the locket and told him about Captain Rupert. The man nearly said no until she presented him the bag of gold that she had brought just for the occasion. The funeral was quick, only she, the priest and several gravediggers were present as he said the man's final rights, and the man sized casket containing the man's pendant and a simple sword were lowered into the ground and filled.

The tombstone, which she was currently looking at, was inscribed with what she thought was best for the man.

'_Guard-Captain Rupert of Albion, May he be Remembered and Never Forgotten.'_

When the priest had asked her why she would do this for anyone, her being the infamous captain of the Queen's Musketeer's, she didn't answer the man as she stood there in silence until the priest left.

Now she stood alone looking at the grave in front of her, she had come there every day after the funeral to contemplate the question and 'talk' with the slab of rock that was most likely the only thing that proved that he existed. Today would be different for the captain of the musketeers.

"E-excuse me."

Agnes turned at the sound of a tiny, almost unheard, voice. It was a little girl that looked a lot like her when she was a child, she looked at the girl over her shoulder but didn't move from facing the tombstone, "What's wrong, girl?"

"I'm s-s-sorry, but are you Agnes?"

She replied hesitantly, "I… am… How did you know?"

The little girl's eyes widened and she pointed at Agnes, "You have a sward, and the guard said to look for a swardswoman Agnes."

The little girl's eyes started to water, Agnes went to a knee and held the girl by her shoulders, "What guard told you to look for me?"

Another voice butted in, "A Captain Rupert in Dartanes." This caused Agnes to look over at a blonde young woman in simple clothes and a pair of spectacles on her nose. She came over, knelt and hugged the little girl as the child began to cry, Agnes looked at the young woman as she cooed the young girl into being quieter.

The young woman looked at Agnes through her broken spectacles and told Agnes the story of Guard Captain Rupert, where he gave up his chance at escaping onboard the final heavily crowded blockade-runner to hold off a group of the strange foreigners with only a broken sword. He held them off long enough for the crew of the ship cut the ropes that were thrown to keep the ship in the port. The last thing they heard him say before leaving ship was to look for a blonde swordswoman named Agnes.

After finishing the story the young woman asked Ages why they had to look for her, and she pointed at the tombstone, "He asked me to bury the only thing he owned, and I promised him that I would give him his last rights."

The young woman looked at her and then reached out and touched the cold slab of stone; she then turned to the little girl and told her to go get the others. Agnes was confused but didn't press anything; she stood, moved to standing against the wall out of the way as the young woman just stared at the stone and inscription.

She was soon joined by another person, then another. Some brought flowers, trinkets and other random things they believed were special in some way. Some would walk up to Agnes and thank her, shake her hand or tell her how the man helped them find loved ones, get extra bits of food, or just try to get them to a safer place than before.

When she moved to leave, she did so quietly and without alerting anybody. She started passing people moving up to the tree in the corner of the raised section of the cemetery, and would nod to each of them. Turning back when she reached the entrance of the graveyard she stood somewhat dumbstruck at how many people there were, they extended almost a fourth of the way to the gate entrance and Agnes could clearly see that the grave was near buried with dozens of flowers and other sentimental objects.

Standing there dumbstruck she was joined by the priest, "Seems like he knew a lot of people after all."

She stood there with the priest as even more people started to arrive, and give flowers and other objects to the man that saved their lives.

Agnes smiled to herself as she finally got an answer to the priest's question, but never told him with what she came up with. The guard captain reminded her of herself; his home burned to the ground by a group of people he couldn't fight then, and he did everything he could to make up for that fact. He would never get another chance to fight them again, like she did with the man that burned her village down, but he made sure that people would

Agnes turned and left the priest and the graveyard, she promised herself that she would return and take care of the grave every so often whenever she was in Tristania. It was simple but she believed the man deserved it…

In the following years after his death, Agnes found out that about a few stories that were quickly circulated between the Albionian refugee's and the commoners of Tristain, one of which was a romance novel that was brought to her by one of her musketeers '_Saint Rupert and the swordswoman'_. After she read that poorly written novel, she would laugh for days whenever someone asked her if it any of it was true.

Another was that Guard Captain Rupert was going to be proclaimed a saint; she thought about it but believed the church would never do such a thing. When she accompanied the queen of Tristain to a morning mass she was surprised in the least too find a new stained glass window of a man in the tabard of a guard captain of Dartanes and holding a broken sword. She asked a priest who that was and she received an answer; Guard Captain Rupert was indeed canonized as the patron saint of Last Stands and Selflessness.

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><p>A month after Dartanes capture, while in fear of this strange new nation that overthrew Albion, life returned to general normalcy. One of the smallest of the strange ships and two of the large dragons from the Empire of Acheron landed on the great tree in the port of La Rochelle under a white flag of truce.<p>

The ship and beasts were under the watch of the entirety of the nearby fort's cannons and the Dragon Knights Corps that held station there. They watched as two people stepped off the ship, a woman near scantily clad in green robes, blindfolded and walking with a tall staff, and a man in an absurd orange robe like clothes. They stood out on the branch that served as the dock for their ship and waited for anyone to great them.

It took several minutes before the old general in charge, one Maxime Weygand, of La Rochelle went out alone and met the strange foreigners from a place unknown, they spoke for some time before he turned and came back to his own men. When one of his men asked him why they were there, he turned towards the young man and spoke as if he had just seen a phantom, "Send a letter to the capital; they've come to see if they could send an ambassador to speak with the queen of Tristain, they wish to have negotiations."


	4. Prelude to Negotiations

_Short message from me this time, does anyone else get that amazing warm feeling when you look and someone's page and see that they added you to favorites? Just me? Besides for that, sorry for the wait, school just started up, the occasional catastrophic YouTube crash and writers block. So a short chapter this time, and it might be a while before I get another chapter up after this, sorry ladies and gentleman._

_Oh yeah! My computer keeps telling me to correct words that are obviously spelled correctly or used in the right sense. So, if you see some weird wording I apologize because I must've overlooked it._

_Read, review and ask questions when you have 'em._

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><p><em><strong>Prelude to Negotiations<strong>_

An emissary from the unknown _Empire of Acheron_, all people within Tristania thought about what this strange foreign man was going to be like, what he would look like, how would he act, is he like the rest of their bloodthirsty army. These were common questions asked by all. But the one person who thought about this man the most was one Henrietta de Tristain, queen of the small kingdom of Tristain.

It had been some time since the letter from Maxime Weygand had come and her answer had gone out, stating that the emissary was allowed to come with a small entourage of advisors, if needed. The day before a horse messenger had arrived and said that the convoy of the emissary would be arriving today, and an incredible amount of nobles had come from far and wide to the court of their queen, at her request or to act as intimidation, to see these strange men from across the ocean.

A small group of nobles and a familiar stood just to the right of Queen Henrietta; they were the Duke de La Vallière, his daughter and Henrietta's childhood friend Louise Françoise and her familiar, now chevalier, Saito Hiraga. Even if they didn't speak, their presence more than anything was a confidence booster for the young queen. To her left was her bodyguard, Chevalier Agnes and several of her musketeers, just in case these Acheronians wished violence during the coming negotiations.

The queen sat in her throne several meters across from the large courtroom doors; while sitting in her throne waiting, she noticed a man approach Agnes and say something quick into her ear, Agnes then approached and whispered to the queen, "Your Highness, a message from the palace guard commander; the emissary comes with a heavy guard and refuses to remove a mask that he wears, what are his orders?"

Henrietta thought for a moment before replying, "We are dealing with a culture that we know nothing about, if they wish to attempt to intimidate us, let them. We will show them we are not so easily swayed." Agnes nodded and told the man behind her to let the emissary and his guards in.

Several minutes' later three dull thuds could be heard on the opposite side of the large doors before they opened to reveal nine people that slowly moved in front of the throne, six were in two separate lines on either side of the group and wore armor over black tunics and carried large square shields covered in purple and a red swirling triskelion's, their helmets covered all of their heads except around the ears and a T-shape barely revealing the eyes, nose, and mouth. Their armor was layered around the chest and stomach and they each had greaves and vambraces on arms and legs. All of their armor was covered in hundreds of blue swirling marks making the armor look like it was reflecting water.

Two of the three people that the guards had in the center were dressed oddly by Halkeginian standards, the one on the right wore essentially the same armor as the guards except she wore a red tunic beneath her armor which was unstained in the way the guards was. She wore no helmet and instead had her white hair in a braid that came in front of her left shoulder and rested midway on her chest.

The woman to the left wore barely any clothes; a green skirt that stopped in the middle of her calves and no shoes or the sandals the others seem to wear, the top of the skirt extended and wrapped around her back and then her chest in two bands that covered each breast before wrapping around her neck, she was also blindfolded but moved about as if she knew every inch of the ground around her. Her waist length white hair wasn't braided like the other woman's as it hung unrestricted but was inlaid heavily with gold beads, but her hair was not the only thing with gold. The center of the blindfold held dozens of small dangling medallions that ran the length around her head, a belt made of medallions hung over the top of her skirt, and every step she made was accompanied with the slight jingle of metal on metal as anklets snapped together. She also held a staff slightly taller than herself that was topped with the head of a serpent.

The man in the center brought the most attention to himself; he slouched slightly and moved with an almost unnoticeable limp, his dark purple robes hung loosely around his frame and as he moved it swayed with each step, Henrietta could not see his hands as they were hidden underneath the robes as was the entirety of his head except for his eyes which could just barely be seen through the bright silver mask that he wore, it reflected a near perfect looking face of a young man.

They moved across the room at a decent pace and stopped as the forward most man in the lines reached the bottom most step of the small dais; a grunt like sound escaped one of the soldiers and the rear most men turned on their heels and faced the door they entered and the two men in the center of the lines turned towards the groups of nobles and servants on either side of the open space that they stood, a loud bang filled the air as their shields hit the ground and then their hands rested on the top rim. A slight murmur went through the crowds of nobles after the display, but was quickly over shadowed by the voice of the man in the mask as he bowed.

"Greetings, Empress of Halkeginia," The man's voice sounded like a mixture of age, years of arguing and the occasional sound of gasping for air. Henrietta noted with some disgust that the man's hands were missing fingers, his thumb, index and middle fingers were all that were left on his left hand, while his right only had the pinky and ring finger left, "I am Cronus… archon of house Parlathan… governor-general of the Albi-yon colony… and emissary of the Empress Larissa Kamaterina… the first empress of the Kamaterina dynasty."

He rose up from his bow and motioned with both hands, without looking away from Henrietta, towards the woman in green, "This is Ley Mother Phobos of the Ley Temple… overall leader of the Ley cult on Albi-yon." Mother Phobos bowed slightly at the hip her staff unmoving, Cronus then motioned to his left towards the other woman, "And this… This is my daughter, Arturia… also of house Parlathan, second in command… as well as master engineer… of the sixty-seventh legion." Arturia rested her right hand on the blade at her hip, clicked her heels together and gave a slight bow with a small '_hup'_.

Cronus's voice just sounded terrible on most people's ears, but Henrietta bearing the mask of a queen tried not to let it bother her, although, she sought to correct one misconception, "Your greeting is well met ambassador Parlathan, but, I dare not claim the title of empress, only the one who unites all of Halkeginia under a single banner, such as our founder Brimir, can claim that. I am simply Henrietta de Tristain, Queen of Tristain." A slight chuckle went through the gathered nobles at the emissary's mistake.

Cronus turned towards his daughter, and the chuckle disappeared from the crowd as he spoke in his native tongue, with the way his voice sounded speaking the Halkeginian dialect, his speaking Acheronian made him sound like an animal growling underwater. Arturia's face turned a lighter shade of red as the man spoke and she looked towards the floor, when she replied she spoke more fluidly without gasping or sounding like a beast.

Henrietta noticed that the Ley Mother never once took her '_eyes'_ off of where she sat as the others spoke. Cronus waved his mangled left hand and turned back towards Henrietta's throne and bowed slightly, "My apologies… _Queen_ of Tristain…" The slight punctuation on queen didn't pass anyone's attention within the throne room, he was about to continue when Louise of all people interrupted, "You will speak to the Queen with the respect she deserves, heathen."

The room was deathly quiet after that as everyone looked at the scion of the Vallière family, she stood with hands on her hips with her normal sense of confidence that Henrietta was always so envious of, but right at that moment all she could do was cover her eyes with a single hand because of Louise. After all she did just insult an ambassador from a nation that conquered Albion in three months, while the combined forces of Tristain and Germanina could not even hold onto the southern tip for two months.

"_Child_," The word sounded more like a venomous insult coming from emissary Parlathan, "When negotiators speak… It is best **not** to interrupt… After all, this is only an introduction… It is common to make mistakes then… To get them out of the way… As it were." His head tilted slightly for emphasis.

Louise sputtered for a moment, her face turning red before being pulled back by the hand of her father on her shoulder, Saito had an empathetic look of embarrassment on his face as Louise stood in front of him. The sound of escaping air from the emissary was either a sick laugh or him actually gasping for another breath, whichever it was Henrietta couldn't tell.

"As to what I was saying…" Emissary Parlathan continued turning back towards the queen, "In an effort to fully understand… How large the nation of Tristain is… I would like to procure maps of the local region…" He bowed as far as his body would allow, "If is not too much to ask for."

She thought for a moment as she looked down at the masked and cloaked man before her start to wobble from being in the bow for a few moments, she thought about the consequences of loaning maps of her country to this strange man and his nation, would he truly just use them to see what her nation is shaped like? Or would he use them to plan an invasion like that of Albion?

She let out a small sigh, "It is not too much to ask for," Henrietta turned towards Agnes, "Have someone bring up maps of Tristain, Gallia, Romalia and Germania. Have them taken to the room of emissary Parlathan." Agnes bowed quickly before turning and talking to a servant.

Cronus bowed even lower than he was before, to the sounds of popping joints, "Thank you… Queen of Tristain… This will help in the coming negotiations."

* * *

><p>"Rather small country, is it not?" Ley Mother Phobos said aloud as she moved a hand over maps and papers she'll never be able to read, <em>hmn's<em> of confirmation came from the younger and elder Parlathan.

The rooms that they were lodged in for the remainder of the night had a small connecting parlor that the maps of Tristain and other countries were laid about on several of the tables that were pushed together into the center of the room. The maps were arrayed so they formed a semi-functional full map of the entire continent.

"So… fractured." The disturbing acheronian voice of the elder Parlathan resounded through the room. Two large countries dwarfed Tristain and sat on either side, one called Germania and the other Gallia. Tristain also has bad history between both, wars, skirmishes, political upheavals, even attempted ecological disasters. But what caught the emissaries eye though was the fact that said small country was still in existence, even though the borders have fluctuated since its inception, it still has not been absorbed by its neighbors. Tristain has always been Tristain ever since the one called Brimir died and had his lands split up amongst his sons and apprentice.

That fact unsettled the acheronian, why would he willingly split a strong empire into smaller pieces that could eventually be conquered by a stronger foe in time? And why did he give all of his sons _and _his apprentice entitlements to land instead of just giving his throne over to the one he trusted most? The culture of the Halkeginian confused all acheronian minds that looked at it.

While the two members of the Parlathan family continued to look at the fragmented map and mark certain spots with either black ink or red wax, the Ley Mother stretched her arms into the air before turning and walking towards one of the empty rooms, "Negotiator, since you have no more need for my services today, I will retire for the night, sleep well."

Two more _hmn's _escaped Parlathan throats as the doors of Phobos's room closed as if by unseen hands. Arturia suppressed a small shudder from a cold wind inside the closed off room after the doors closed fully before looking back at her father as he rose from his leaning over the table, he didn't stretch but his body popped anyway, "It is quite late… And I am still tired… From today's travels… I will retire as well… Sleep well, Arturia."

Arturia stopped looking at the map fully and bowed slightly at her father, "Sleep well, Archon." The elder man walked, more like shuffled in Arturia's eyes, towards the other room and had a guard close the door behind him. She thought a moment of the man that had sired her brother and then herself, all her childhood memories were of a strong man that never wanted to be a soldier, who always wanted to be in the middle of arguments and who almost always in the end had either one or both sides of the argument wrapped around his finger. Now that man was covered from head to toe in cloth and a mask of silver in a permanent restful face of his youthful self, what he appeared like underneath the mask now only the gods and the First knew.

She looked down at the maps on the table and looked over the area that her father had spent the majority of his time over, and had to suck down a laugh. In black ink he had marked every position of every major resource, which might have been outdated, and city that looked important which, again, might have been outdated, within Tristain. She honestly started to think he didn't even notice he did it anymore and just became a natural reaction to looking at maps.

After contemplating what her father did to the map she looked at all the red marks she made, and noticed that instead of cities or resources she had marked open fields, foot hills and mountains. Her emotions dropped from her face, like her father she too had marked areas of interest, and she assumed her brother did the same when he looked at a map nowadays.

She had picked out every area that an acheronian legion could have an easier time facing another legion. Going so far as to try and place heavier siege weapons on higher areas to get better range. She placed a hand on the table and the other on her hip before lowering her head in a sigh, if all the negotiations went smoothly she wouldn't have to come back to this tiny country and use any of those positions to destroy their armies.

She turned and grabbed a candle stick and holder before turning towards the final open room; reaching the door she turned back and looked at the head guard, "Rotate every few hours so none of you end up dead on your feet tomorrow, sleep well guardsman." A grunt of confirmation reached her ears and she closed the door behind herself and made her way to the side of the bed.

She set the candle down on a bed table and stared at the rather large four poster bed, more room than the legion's cots, and possibly more room than the empress's bed. She shook her head loose of a small tie to keep her hair in place, before reaching up and pulling on a strand of cloth that hung off her shoulder and loosening a small cord like belt and letting the entirety of her tunic fall to the floor, the wonders of acheronian fashion was that everything was loose, allowed the skin to breathe and fell away quickly when needed. Standing naked in the candle light she reached up and flared her chest length white hair away from her body before slipping into the bed.

She sat for a moment and enjoyed the cool feeling of the covers and sighed, her rest wasn't long before she cast both of the large pillows across the room to land in a nearby chair. She rolled around and pulled the covers free from their locked positions under the edges of the bed before find a good position on her side near the edge of the bed and covered completely by the soft cloth covers, reaching out swiftly she found the candle flame and pinched it out quickly before retreating back under the covers.

She fell asleep rather slowly, the bed seemed too soft and her mind was thinking back to the country of Tristain, when she finally did drift off to sleep it was filled with strange dreams of black haired boys, loud pink haired young women and even the current empress of Acheron.

Strange dreams indeed.


End file.
